Under dark cover
by Nerzuhl
Summary: A notorious assassin is recruited by an order of knights to infiltrate Drow society and retrieve a stolen artefact. Rated T for explicit violence.
1. Prologue

**Under dark cover**

Written by Nerzuhl

Prologue

Drip drip drip drip drip, thump, thump, a small flicker of light, gone, thump, my head throbs, dark clots, blood, small rivulets, thump, of it flooding my eyes, thump. Danger! Must get up, get my bearings, be ready... An old man shouting "Be READY!", spittle flying from his mottled lips... Thump, must get up, rub eyes, more blood, try to stand. PAIN, pain everywhere, fall, thump, thump, drip. Shattered glass, under my fingers, my back, in my head, everywhere. Blinking furiously, light, tears, spatters of blood on glass, a holy beauty ... temple, crimson light through the stained glass, a ritual, NO, must stay awake, must get UP! Thump, light again, back where I belong, look around. A woman, cruel smile, talking, must listen, is this real? "... but it doesn't matter now, does it?", she asks me, "Because you are dead Nerzuhl, twang, you're dead." Laughing, a twang, CHEST! PAIN! No breath, what is blood to air if you must breathe? I drown in the waters of my pain and blood, the glass in my hands is crushed in convulsion, digging in my skin. Dark, deep dark, even the pain is remote now...

_"If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug her in my arms."_

William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Waking up with ankles and wrists chained together, sitting in the filthy straw on the dungeon floor was unpleasant, but not quite as bad as the splitting headache. Sometime, somebody, somewhere was going to pay for this. There had to have been an insider, how could they otherwise have known exactly where to find me, bursting into my hideout and knocking me senseless just when I got out of bed. I spat on the floor in disgust, it was all incredibly embarassing. Hadn't killed me either... foolish, unless they had torture on their minds.

The latch on the inner side of my cell door clicked and with a slow wrenching sound, it swung open. Against the bright outside light, I saw the outlines of two bulky figures.

"It seems as though your luck has taken a turn for the worst, thief Nerzuhl.", one of them said in a deep rolling voice.

"He's an assassin m'lord, an' he's had it comin' after what he's done.", the other figure supplied. My eyes adjusted to the light, the first speaker was an older, grey-haired knight with broad shoulders and a heavy helmet tucked under his arm. Noble resolve almost oozing from him. The second was Tibbits, captain of the town guard who had given the Guild a lot of trouble lately. Disgusting, petty man.

"'tis of no moment. Nerzuhl, I trust that you are aware of your predicament. Your head alone presently fetches a ten-score silver pieces."

"Answer him, scum.", Tibbits snapped, slapping me across my face.

"I confess that being able to open my eyes again was, indeed, some sort of a surprise.", I replied scornfully. This earned my another slap,

"Address my lord properly scum!"

"My lord, of course.", I added, rolling my eyes.

The knight continued as though he hadn't heard,

"Although it goes against my better judgement, I have been instructed to make you an offer, in exchange for you cooperation."

"And what are you prepared to offer me, _my lord_?", I asked, particularly emphasizing the knight's title.

The muscles in his jaw tigthened. "In exchange for your assistance in the return of an artefact for my order, I have been given the right to pardon you of your past crimes and offer you a position at the Arc."

Right, a pardon from all past crimes as one's opening bid? Offering me a position at the mage's centre of power? I laughed, which resulted in another slap from Tibbits. My eyes were still twinkling when I turned my head to face the knight again.

"And what if I am disinclined to agree, my Lord?", I smirked.

"Then you shall be hung by the neck until dead on the morrow.", he added and looked as though he would love nothing better than securing the noose around my neck. I heaved a long, suffering sigh.

"Then why, _my lord_, would I ever want to disagree?"

"Procuring the item is a dangerous task. If they who stole the item find you out, you will longingly think of being hung until their tortures drive the spark from your eyes. The dark ones are vicious.", his face was wearing a nasty smile.

"You are sending me to the Drow...", this required some consideration, being sent as a thief into Drow society was an almost certain and rather grisly death. Not that the knight seemed to be bothered about this though. I made a small mental note to kill him as soon as the opportunity presented itself. He nodded curtly and turned around, "I shall return in an hour to hear your decision." The door was shut again.

I tried my chains, but they were quite secure and even without them, escaping the cell within the hour would be rather difficult. Quite a pickle, but the choice was obvious. As if I would ever willingly submit to being hung by Tibbits and his pathetic gang of guardsmen. Death at the hands of the Drow would at the very least be an interesting experience. What order did the knight represent anyway? Abysmal negotiators and not quite as noble as the Order of the most radiant heart. They would never have stooped to hiring an assassin to do their dirtywork. No crest or coat of arms either, his armour had been free of any adorment. And who had informed them about me? They even knew of my desire to infiltrate the Arc. Riddles, riddles, riddles. I hate riddles. Gnashing my teeth, I sank to the floor and rested my head against the wall.

The door was opened again, but now only the knight stood in the entrance. "What is your decision, Nerzuhl?", apparently he did not want to waste any more time and again his face was wearing a light smile. Killing him would be a real treat, perhaps I should reserve it for a special occasion, like my birthday or the summer festival.

"I need more information before I agree.", perhaps I could persuade him to make me an even better offer.

"What order do you represent, what is the item I should steal and what kind of assistance will be given?"

"The deal stands as it was presented and you will be operating only on a need-to-know basis."

Ah, a 'need-to-know basis', how extremely convenient.

"One, you obviously want me for the job and hanging me means finding and capturing another candidate, quite a bit of work. Two, you used a Guild insider to get to me. The moment I am executed, the Guild will know that there was one and they will exact some justice of their own. We have ways to make people talk and if we find him, we will have names of those who are to be punished. So on the whole, I think that there is quite some room for negotiation." The knight's smile broadened.

"Perhaps, but perhaps we struck a deal with the Guild. You are not as universally loved as you may think and removing you was, shall we say, mutually beneficial."

Now that was terribly rude, the guild master had sold me out. I know I should have killed him when I had the chance.

"I grow weary of your stalling, yea or nay Nerzuhl. Not answering means quick death on the morrow." and he started to turn around.

"Fine!", I snapped, "I will do your bloody chore, but I do want some guarantees."

"Contrary to members of your Guild and you, my order has a sense of honour Nerzuhl. We will collect you and describe to you your exact task in a moment."

Tibbits entered, together with three other guardsmen. They put a rough canvas sack over my head and picked me up from the cell floor. I was dragged through the guards' compound, past the other cells, my legs dragging over the filthy floor behind me. Not being able to see anything, I heard the jeers of the other prisoners and the steady march of the knight to my right. Through the barracks, up the stairs and out into the open. I smelled horses and was suddenly hoisted upward into a carriage. At least one of the guards was still here, holding me by the scruff of my neck. The door was closed, there was a crack of a whip and the carriage started to move.

After we had travelled a while, I was reasonably sure that we had left the city. Time to teach my guards that keeping me close to them was a foolish idea. During the travel, I had already started to tremble slightly, now I let my breath slowly grow more and more ragged and forced myself to throw up, something I had been trained to do for exactly this sort of situation. The puke spattered against the canvas sack and I inhaled and exhaled panicky and irregularly.

"Cap'n, he's going to choke on his own vomit, shouldn't we pull the sack off?"

"Leave t' sack righ' where it is Davies."

"But won' that knight be mightily angry if he dies, Cap'n?"

"Fine, pull the sack off, he's chained anyways." A hand groped and caught the sack. The moment it was pulled up I saw that I was lying on my back in a small, dark carriage, perpendicular to its motion. Tibbits was sitting on the far side and Davies next to me. "He looks miserable Cap'n, an' that smell." Davies' bloodshot eyes flicked over my puke spattered face. Carefully, I placed the palms of my chained hands to the carriage floor, there was no room for mistakes here. Suddenly I tensed and launched myself from the floor with my hands and feet. Davies' eyes widened in surprise as I veered up and sunk my teeth in his windpipe. Jerking my head left to right, I tore it open. Tibbits shouted in surprise and went for his sword, but, using my hands on the floor for leverage, I lashed out at him with my chained ankles, smashing them into his face. Squealing, he grabbed his shattered nose. Behind me, the desperate whistling breath of Davies' grew weaker and I turned to launch myself at the carriage door. But suddenly the carriage came to a halt, I was slammed into the bench in front of me and the door was jerked open. Two helmeted knights armed with cudgels stormed in and knocked me senseless.


End file.
